


Gone too soon

by smkkbert



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst fic, F/M, Future AU, family au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5878588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smkkbert/pseuds/smkkbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver and Felicity have to deal with a loss they never saw coming. Oliver wonders if they are strong enough to get through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He had been tortured. On the island Oliver had been physically tortured a lot and after he had come home, he had basically emotionally tortured himself with driving away the people he had actually needed close to him. He had lied to so many people and hurt so many people. The worst of it had been denying himself love, the love of the woman he loved.

But all of that felt like it was so long ago and he had lived happily for so long now, he had almost forgotten what unbearable pain felt like. If it hadn’t been for his worst nightmares to come alive in his sleep, Oliver hadn’t experienced any form of torture since he had gotten his head out of his ass as Felicity would say and started to really live. He had lived happily without any pain or at least without any that had even come close to feeling like torture. The worst physical pain had been experienced in the field and the worst emotional pain he had experienced had been the one when Emmy had told him that he couldn’t kiss her in front of her friends because it was embarrassing.

Oliver felt a lump forming in his throat and tears welling in his eyes, but he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. Right now wasn’t the time to fall apart. He had felt himself at the edge of falling apart since the morning he had started feeling like being caught in his worst nightmare, worse than anything he had endured on the island and since. No dream or hallucination or whatever could make him feel as tortured as he was feeling right now.

Hastily wiping away the one tear that had escaped his eyes, he hurried back to the limousine that was waiting in front of the cemetery. Neither Felicity nor he himself had felt able to drive today and they hadn’t wanted to have any of their friends drive them although they had all offered. Due to the money Felicity earned with Queen Incorporated there had been no need for them to force themselves to drive or to accept their friends’ help. Felicity had just called the driver and asked for a ride to the funeral and back home after.

He opened the door and let himself drop onto the cold leather seats. From the corner of his eye he could see Felicity sitting at the other end of the rear bench seat. Her hands were in her lap, her head turned away from him. Still he could see that her eyes were wet with tears that refused to fall. She was looking out through the window. It had started raining by now, almost like in those bad movies where there was sunshine all the time until there was a funeral and suddenly rain fell in sheets.

She hadn’t cried yet. And since it had happened she had barely talked. She wasn’t talking now either. There was a silence between them that was tenser than it had ever been between them. Even during the time they had both been in love with each other already, but Oliver hadn’t allowed himself to be happy with her, silence hadn’t been as heavy as is it was feeling now. All of those were only more reasons for why Oliver could not allow himself to fall apart right now. As long as Felicity was still the way she was right now, he couldn’t allow himself to lose the last bit of control he still had.

His hand almost moved towards her on own accord. He needed to take her hand and hold it and reassure himself that she was still there. He wished he had any comfort to give to her, but he himself was caught in his grief so deeply, he didn’t have any comfort to give. The need to touch her was so strong, his fingertips were tingling from it, but before his hand could reach too close to her, he put it next to his thigh and away from her. He knew she wouldn’t accept any touch right now. Whenever he had tried to touch her since it had happened, she had pulled away, wordlessly rejecting any form of closeness.

When he couldn’t bare the silence anymore, he took in a deep breath and without looking at her he asked, “Are you okay?”

It was a stupid question. Clearly nothing was okay.

Felicity didn’t answer. He could see her lips moving, not in attempt to speak but in an attempt to hold on to her self-control. He wished she wouldn’t try to hold on and just give into it, so they could hold onto each other in their grief instead of sitting so close to each other and yet be miles apart.

“Are you?” she asked.

Oliver closed his eyes shortly, releasing a breath he had been holding for so long. When he whispered his answer, it was barely audible. “No.”

Nothing was okay.

“You know what you have to do, right?” Felicity asked.

Although Oliver felt the need to look at her, he didn’t do it from fear what he would see. Her voice barely sounded like herself. There was pain and anger in it, both of them of a level he had never heard before in her voice. Admittedly, they had never experienced grief like this which meant a lot given their lives, but… He was scared of how it would change them and how it would change her. He had barely recognized her since… everything had happened.

“You have to kill the son of a bitch.”

He felt a shiver run down his spine at how cold her voice was. Even through the slight tremble he could hear how determined she was about this. There was no hesitation, no room for objection. She wanted him dead.

“Felicity,” he whispered, unsure of what to say to her. When he saw her head snapping around towards him, he held his breath and looked back at her. For the first time since it had happened, they were really looking at each other. Neither of them was looking away. So Oliver used the opportunity to take a close look at her.

She looked angry, so much angrier than he had even imagined she would. He shortly wondered if he looked as angry as she did, but he knew from the look he had taken in the mirror this morning that he looked rather tortured and broken than angry. Actually the expression on Felicity’s face reminded him a lot of what he had seen in the mirror the first year after he had returned from the island. He had been so angry back then. He had been so angry at the world and what it had done to him and his family.

“He deserves to die,” Felicity said firmly.

“Felicity…” Oliver whispered again and it almost sounded like a sigh. He shook his head, swallowing down the new lump that threatened to form in his throat. “I don’t think-“

“He _killed_ our daughter!” Felicity now yelled. “If it wasn’t for him, she would still be alive! She would be safely at home instead of six feet under the ground right now. She would have been able to celebrate her birthday and blow out the candles and unwrap her presents tomorrow. She would have been able to grow up and go to school and find a job she loves and have a family of her own one day. But she isn’t able to do any of those things because she is gone. Dead. Ripped out of her and our lives way too soon!”

She was relieving herself from some of the anger, Oliver thought. It was a good thing. She needed to get rid of the anger to allow herself to feel the pain. So it was actually a good thing she was talking like that. And still it scared him more than any villain had ever done. Because he was expecting villains to be that determined about killing someone. He hadn’t expected it from her.

“Felicity…”

“You have killed for less!”

Oliver opened his mouth to reply, but he found no words to say to her because what was he supposed to say to that? He had killed a lot of people and none of them had been linked to his daughter’s death. His old self might have killed the guy, regardless of how wrong it was. But he wasn’t the same angry man that had returned from the island. He was different now. He knew that the man Felicity wanted dead wasn’t responsible for what had happened.

So he shook his head and watched the anger in Felicity’s face increase. He almost expected her to scream and crawl over the back seats to hit him with the tight fists her hands had formed into. He would actually feel relieved if she would allow her anger to show like that. And he would also feel relieved to feel any form of physical pain, even when it wasn’t going to cover the emotional pain that burdened him.

But instead of attacking him or anything Felicity stayed calm. Her face turned to stone in front his eyes. And when she spoke, her voice was so cold it sent an uncomfortable shiver down Oliver’s spine.

“What kind of father are you that you don’t even try to prevail justice for your daughter’s death?”

She opened the door and was already turning away to get out of the car when Oliver grabbed her wrist and without much gentleness stopped her from leaving. Felicity looked at him with a deep frown between her eyebrows, the anger being back in her face.

“It wasn’t his fault, Felicity,” he explained. “He didn’t kill her. It was an accident. And I know that being angry is so much easier than feeling the pain, but…”

He had to gulp. His throat was feeling tight. His eyes were burning with tears that made it hard to see her clearly, but he held onto the thin thread of control to tell her what he should have told her already.

“We have another child at home, one that is alive and needs us now more than ever. We have to be in this together and we have to get through this together. We can’t break apart. We’re still a family. We’re still parents. Tommy lost his sister. He can’t lose his parents, too.”

Although Oliver had only whispered those words, there was a ringing in his ears as if he had yelled the words. He was out of breath and hence breathing heavily. It was the only audible sound in the limousine. He waited for Felicity to say something, but she just looked at him with an expression he didn’t know how to read in her eyes. A single tear streamed down her cheek and he wanted to wipe it away and pull Felicity’s head to his chest and hold her, so she could cry in his arms and he could join into her crying, but he couldn’t move.

A few days ago everything had been so great. Everything had been as perfect as possible. He had been happier than he had ever thought he would be. And now it felt like everything was falling apart. He was falling apart. Felicity was clearly fighting against falling apart which would only make it worse at the end. And the longer he looked at her, the more he wondered if their marriage was falling apart, too.

“I have no idea how you can just accept that she’s gone. It’s like you don’t care at all.”

Her words hurt even worse than the rejection of the last days. He could physically feel the pain her words caused like a knife that was stabbed right through his chest. He struggled for breath, but even when he took in a breath, no air would fill his lungs. When Felicity pulled her arm out of his grip, he didn’t fight her. Instead he let go of her wrist and watched her getting out of the car. The sound of the door slamming shut behind her seemed as loud as an explosion in his ear and Oliver flinched.

He had heard about marriages falling apart when a child died. But he had never thought that it would happen to them because he had never assumed they would lose a child. And even when he would have let that thought in, he probably wouldn’t have believed that they would lose each other over to it. Felicity and he had always been a team, no matter what obstacles life had thrown at them. Maybe this was too much. How much could a heart take? How much could a marriage take?

“Louis?” Oliver asked.

The driver, who had stubbornly looked in front of him and had probably tried his best to shut the voices of his boss and her husband out to ignore them, looked at Oliver in the back mirror.

“Mr. Queen?”

“Please drive me home.”

“And Mrs. Queen?” the driver asked.

Louis shortly turned his head to look out of the window at the side. Oliver wondered if Felicity stood there or if she was pacing up and down like she had done so often those last days, playing with her engagement ring and wedding band like she often did when she was nervous, or if maybe she had left to go back to the grave or somewhere else. She had left the grave as soon as the coffin had been lowered into the ground and she had thrown a hand of earth onto it. Oliver had followed her example like he had done when they had buried Sara already and so had the few others that had been invited before they had expressed their sympathy.

But Oliver didn’t turn around to see what she was doing. He couldn’t stay here any longer. As much as he loved her, he knew that he couldn’t help her right now. First she needed time for herself. It seemed wrong to leave her alone, but Oliver knew from experience that as long as you weren’t willing to accept help, nobody could help you. So Felicity needed time for herself.

And there was someone else who needed him right now, someone he could actually help.

“My son needs me right now.”

 

 

_“Come on, Tommy! Just one step! Just one step!”_

_Chuckling, Felicity leaned into the doorframe and watched her daughter trying to encourage her little brother to let go of the couch table and take a step into her direction. Little Tommy just looked at her with wide eyes, holding onto the edge of the table with one hand and reaching the other one out for his sister to take his hand and help him to walk._

_“No, Tommy! Come on! Just one step!”_

_Emmy really tried to give her best to make Tommy take the first step on his own. The little boy loved walking. As soon as someone was around, he would demand to borrow that person’s forefingers, so he could walk with that help for balance. From morning to evening he could do nothing else. Felicity and Oliver both had pain in their backs from walking in a crouched position, but Tommy didn’t let that stop him._

_When Tommy released an unhappy cry for not being helped, Emmeline sighed and crossed the distance to her brother. Immediately Tommy formed tight, little fists around his sister’s fore- and middle fingers and started walking. His face showed how happy and proud he was for being a big boy who could walk already._

_“Mommy, he still doesn’t walk on his own!”_

_As soon as he noticed his mother, Tommy changed direction to walk over to her. Felicity got down onto her knees and spread her arms. Only when he could put a hand on his mother’s shoulder, Tommy let go of his sister’s hands to snuggle up to his mother, burying his face against her chest._

_“Mommy, when will Tommy finally walk on his own?”_

_“I don’t know,” Felicity replied, looking at her daughter over her son’s head. “When you were his age, you were already dancing through the living room.”_

_“Really?”_

_Felicity nodded._

_“Really, mommy?” Emmy asked._

_Felicity nodded._

_“Really, mommy? No joke?”_

_“No joke,” Felicity promised, but couldn’t stop the amused chuckle that escaped her mouth at her daughter’s disbelief._

_“But really, mommy?”_

_“Yes,” Felicity assured once more, nodding her head._

_She picked Tommy up from the floor, but he struggled against her hold immediately, so Felicity put him down on his feet and he hastily wrapped his arms around each of Felicity’s legs to support his stand. When she looked down at him, he put his head in his neck and giggled at her. Felicity lightly tapped the tip of his nose with her forefinger and he smiled amusedly._

_“Mommy?”_

_“Yes, hon?”_

_“Can I go ask Lilly if she wants to play?”_

_“Daddy’s not home to accompany you there yet,” Felicity replied. “But he should be back any second and then-“_

_“I can go alone,” Emmy stated firmly._

_Felicity shook her head. “No, no. There are road works on the way there and-“_

_“I have to cross the street before the road works. And I have to be extra careful.”_

_“Daddy did a good job teaching you about what to do, didn’t he?”_

_Emmy nodded proudly and Felicity sighed. She knew her daughter and she knew that she could actually let her go to her friend at the end of the street alone. It was just that the road works made it hard to see anything at that part of the street._

_“Can I please go alone, mommy? Please!”_

_Felicity sighed. “Come on, put on your shoes and then Tommy and I will go with you to the street. As soon as you’ve crossed it, you can-“_

_When she heard the front door being opened, Felicity turned around to see Oliver stepping in._

_“Daddy!” Emmy shouted happily and launched herself at her father, jumping up at him and wrapping her tiny body around his._

_“Hi, princess,” Oliver chuckled, hugging her close to him. “Did you get Tommy to walk?”_

_“Nope,” she replied, shaking her head. “But maybe I get mommy to let me walk to Lilly on my own.”_

_“We practiced that a lot,” Oliver told Felicity and Emmy nodded her head in agreement. “I think she can do it on her own.”_

_Felicity perked her lips, but since both, Oliver and Emmy, made cute, pleading faces, she rolled with her eyes and gave in. They were like an inseparable team._

_“Thanks, momma!” Emmy exclaimed happily and when Oliver took a step forward she pressed a kiss to her mother’s cheek._

_After Emmy had put on her shoes, Oliver and Felicity watched from the door how Emmy crossed the street right in front of their home. She did it exactly like her daddy had taught her and she had practiced on his side the last months over and over again. One look to the left, one look to the right, another to the left and then she crossed the street quickly. When she had reached the sidewalk on the other side of the street, she turned around to her parents and waved at them with a big smile on her face._

_“See?” Oliver asked Felicity when Emmy was out of their sight. “She can do it.”_

_“I never really doubted that she can do it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it that she already can do it. I don’t want her to grow up that fast.”_

_“Well, we still have little Tommy here,” Oliver replied and nodded to the toddler who still stood between Felicity’s legs, looking around nosily. When he met his father’s eyes he giggled like he had understood exactly what Oliver had just said. “And you know we can always ensure replenishment.”_

_He stepped closer to Felicity until his chest almost made contact with her breast, but he made sure there wasn’t any contact. His face showed a wide smirk and he wiggled his eyebrows to make sure that there was no mistaking his words._

_“Well, we could start as soon as we put Tommy to bed for his nap,” Felicity replied, leaning forward as much as Tommy between her legs allowed it and wrapped her arms around Oliver’s waist._

_“I am sweaty,” he stated._

_“I know,” Felicity replied, taking a tiny step forward, so Tommy wouldn’t lose his balance and she was closer to Oliver at the same time. “It’s amazing.”_

_Their lips met in a gentle kiss. It was a miracle how they could still find time for each other although they had two little kids, Oliver thought, especially since Felicity was also running a multi-billion dollar company. If anyone had ever told him that this would be his life, he would have laughed. It had always seemed so-_

_The loud crash from somewhere down the street ripped them out of their kiss. Their lips parted and before he knew it, Oliver was already running, his body acting on own accord._

_One moment everything had been perfect, the next everything had fallen apart._

_A car had hit her. The driver had been in shock, slightly hurt but mostly shocked about what had happened. The brakes of his car hadn’t worked. He had lost control and the car had hit Emmy. She had died in Oliver’s arms before the ambulance had made it to them. The car had been examined and the result hadn’t left anyone satisfied. Unpredictable brake failure. And nobody had been to blame._

 

“Dadda!”

“Hold on a second, buddy,” Oliver asked, winking at his son who had gripped his leg for more balance in his stand. He hoped the smile seemed at least partly believable, but he actually doubted that it reached his eyes. “So, here we go. Ready for dinner?”

Tommy tugged at Oliver’s jeans with his right hand, reaching the left one out for him. His eyes were already focused on something outside of the kitchen, a clear sign that the fourteen-month-old was less interested in dinner and more interested in practicing some more walking. Although Oliver knew that the more Tommy would exhaust himself during these last hours of the day the harder it would be to get him to bed later, he was almost glad it was this way because he knew that as soon as Tommy would be in bed and he could sit down and get some rest, he would eventually fall apart.

One quiet moment, that he wouldn’t have to keep himself together for Tommy or anyone else, would be enough for him to fall apart. All day his self-control had been hanging on to a thread. He had forced himself through this day for Felicity and for Tommy. But Felicity still hadn’t come home, so with Tommy sleeping there would be nobody he would feel the need to be strong for. He knew the emptiness Emmy’s death had left in his heart would expand and bury him for at least a couple hours. He would have to fight it when Tommy would wake up like he usually did at least once each night. The little boy was too young to understand what tragedy had happened to their family.

When Oliver reached down, Tommy gripped his father’s forefingers tightly and immediately started walking. Oliver followed, letting his son decide where to go and what corner of their home to explore some more. Most of the times he would just walked from one corner to the other with no destination in mind. He just wanted to move.

But tonight Tommy walked to the stairs determinedly, coming to stop in front of the stair gate he had mount as soon as Emmy had become mobile. The young boy let go of his father’s fingers to grip the bars instead. He looked like a prisoner Oliver thought sadly and got down onto his knees behind Tommy, rubbing the boy’s back and feeling the comforting pounding of his son’s heart beneath his palm.

Tommy turned around to his father, pointing his finger to the stairs behind the gate.

“First you’ll have dinner and then we will go upstairs and daddy will put you to bed, okay?” Oliver asked, but Tommy only looked from Oliver to the stairs and back to Oliver again.

“Emmy?”

Oliver had to swallow hard and take in a deep breath before he felt himself able to answer to his son’s question.

“No, Emmy is not upstairs,” he explained quietly. “Emmy’s in… She’s in…”

His voice broke and a sob he had forced back for too long was leaving his lips. He had cried in the hospital and later in the morgue when he had seen Emmy’s tiny, dead body, but after that he had forced back any tears that had threatened to fall. He had deferred his own grief to give Felicity the time and room he had felt she needed. It hadn’t helped her and neither had it helped him.

“Dadda?” Tommy asked quietly and put his hand to Oliver’s knee for support when he took a step towards him and snuggled his head under Oliver’s chin.

Oliver lowered his nose to the crown of his son’s head and breathed him in. Tommy was who kept him alive and kept him from doing anything stupid like heading out in his suit and randomly kill criminals. A part of him wanted to do that. We wanted to feel something else than the unbearable pain he was feeling and rage seemed to be the best option. There wasn’t much missing to turn his pain into rage.

His daughter had been ripped from their lives way too soon. If that wasn’t something to feel rage about, what else was?

“Come on, it’s time for dinner now,” Oliver said, wiping away the tears from his cheeks. “After that I am going to read you a story and we cuddle in bed, okay?”

They walked over to the kitchen, Tommy holding his daddy’s forefingers as usually. Oliver lifted Tommy in the highchair and started feeding him. The fridge was full of meals their neighbors had cooked for them. It would be enough to get Tommy through the next weeks. Neither Felicity nor he had eaten much since Emmy had… since it had happened. Thea had come by and forced them to sit down and eat at least a little, but she herself had barely been able to get anything down.

“Dadda?” Tommy called for Oliver’s attention and pulled at his dad’s sweater. Oliver hastily put on a halfhearted smile and held the spoon with the lasagna in Tommy’s reach. The boy leaned forward and ate eagerly.

He was glad Tommy was so young. He had loved his sister like crazy. When she had cried, so had he. She had been the person he had smiled at first. His first word had been her name. Whenever he had been able to find something to hold onto when walking, he had chasing after her. Oliver didn’t even want to imagine what it would be like if Tommy would actually understand what had happened. He looked so unburdened in his highchair, eating like it was a normal day. Only when his eyes turned to the empty chair beside him Emmy had always used there was a slight frown between his eyebrows.

“Dadda?” he asked, turning his head away from the spoon, refusing to eat more.

“What’s up, buddy?” Oliver asked, trying to smile, but he knew it must look more like a grimace. How was he ever going to really smile again?

“Emmy?” Tommy asked, pointing his finger at the empty chair next to him.

“Emmy’s not coming home,” Oliver whispered. He felt his voice cracking as his throat tightened once more. “Emmy’s in heaven.”

Emmy was in heaven. His beautiful baby girl was in heaven. She wasn’t coming back. She was gone. Forever.

When Oliver sobbed this time, he didn’t even try to fight it. Putting the remains of Tommy’s food away, Oliver put his elbows to his knees and started crying. His body was shaking from the silent cries. Tears were streaming down his face as he finally really acknowledged that his daughter was never going to come back.

Never again was he going to wake her up and see her sleepy eyes in the morning when she was just as disorientated as her mother always was when she woke up. Never again was he going to read her a story that she would interrupt with a hundred nosy questions, half of them he wouldn’t be able to answer. Never again was he going to pull her in for cuddle time with Felicity and Tommy. Never again was he-

Tommy released a loud cry and Oliver hastily took in a sniffling breath.

“Come on, buddy. It’s bedtime.”

He lifted Tommy from the highchair into his arms and pressed a kiss to the little boy’s cheek. Tommy dropped his head to Oliver’s shoulder, sighing loudly. They had just reached the middle of the stairs when Oliver heard the familiar sounds of the front door being unlocked. He stood still and turned around to see Felicity enter their home.

Their eyes met immediately and Oliver’s heartbeat fastened in a reaction. Felicity’s cheeks were wet with tears, her make-up almost completely cried away. All that was left were some remains of her lipstick. Her eyes were red and puffy, her hair a mess and her whole body was shaking from the heavy sobs that escaped her mouth.

It took her a moment before she could move, but once she did, she was running towards where Oliver and Tommy were standing on the stairs. She had just approached them when her right arm wrapped tightly around his neck while her left hand was clawed around the fabric of Tommy’s clothes. She buried her head between Oliver’s chest and Tommy’s tummy, crying uncontrollably with her whole body trembling against Oliver and Tommy.

Usually when she would cry in his arms, he would just lift her from the floor and carry her to the couch or the bed, so they could lie down and he could hold her. But his own tears were still falling from his eyes and his own sobs were still keeping him breathing normally. He felt weaker than he ever had in his life, more exhausted than even after the hardest days on the island. With the last strength he had, he sat down, readjusting the now crying Tommy in his arms, so he wouldn’t fall. Felicity climbed onto his lap, trying to get as close to the two of them as possible.

“She’s dead, Oliver,” Felicity sobbed against the side of his neck and Oliver wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her impossibly close. “Our baby girl is dead.”

Oliver didn’t answer. There were no words that could tell how he felt. And there were no words that could comfort any of them. He just held onto Felicity and Tommy and cried and let them cry because Felicity was right.

Emmy was dead. Their baby girl was dead.

 

 

Oliver didn’t know how long they had been sitting there like that. It could have been seconds or minutes or maybe hours. At some point they had gotten up, though. Oliver had changed Tommy into his pajamas while Felicity had put on comfortable sweatpants and a shirt. Then they had all three laid down together in bed. Tommy had fallen asleep shortly after. Like so much else lately most of what had happened was a blur to Oliver. He just remembered fragments that he could somehow put together to a story.

Now they were lying in the dark and although Felicity’s eyes were closed and her breathing even, Oliver knew that she wasn’t sleeping. He could see it in the way her lips pressed against Tommy’s forehead every few seconds and the way her grip on both of them, Tommy and Oliver, tightened in time with the appearance of a more pained expression on her face.

“She would have turned six tomorrow,” Oliver suddenly heard himself whisper. His voice was rough from crying. Felicity opened her eyes and new tears formed in them. She nodded with an audible gulp and Oliver took another deep breath. “I would… I would like to…”

His whispered voice broke and he pressed a kiss to the back of Tommy’s head to reassure himself that their son was still there and still alive.

“What?” Felicity asked quietly.

“I would like to bake her favorite cake and- oh god!“ he interrupted himself and took in a deep, sniffling breath. “I want to… celebrate her… birthday.”

Felicity didn’t answer for a while. She just looked at him, the expression in her face unreadable.

“She’s not here anymore, Oliver,” she whispered.

“I know,” he whispered back. “But we are.”

They were here and they needed to remember Emmy and they needed to be grateful for the time they had had with her. Emmy had been so excited about her birthday. He knew that she couldn’t celebrate anymore, but they could. Not celebrate of course. The pain was still too present for that. But they could… Oliver didn’t have any words to express what he meant. He just knew that they couldn’t let Emmy’s birthday just pass.

“Okay,” Felicity whispered.

Oliver nodded quietly. Part of him wanted to ask if she was really okay with that, but he knew that it was going to take a long time until they would be okay again. But they would. It was always going to hurt. It was never going to become less. It was never going to be okay. But they would. They would be okay again one day.

“We should probably try and get some sleep,” Oliver murmured.

“I don’t want to sleep,” Felicity replied immediately. “When I sleep, I can see her. And then I think she is alive and when I wake up-“

When she sobbed and lowered her face, so it was hidden against the crown of Tommy’s head, Oliver nodded and stroked over her soft blonde curls comfortingly while he cried some more tears himself.

“I know,” he whispered because he did. He did know. Whenever he closed his eyes, he could see her smile and hear her talk and sometimes he could even smell the scent of her skin and hair and when he woke up, he looked around for her, sometimes even saying her name. And then realization hit him again and it hurt just as bad as it had hurt when he had learned it the first time. “I know.”

Felicity took some deep breaths until the trembling of her body stopped. When she moved her head to look at Oliver again, her lips brushed against Tommy’s forehead once more and with a quiet sound the little boy snuggled a little closer to Felicity. Oliver followed the movement until his chest was pressed against his son’s back again. He wrapped his arm more tightly around Felicity and Tommy and rubbed his hand soothingly up and down Felicity’s back while her hand was moving from his back over his shoulder to his neck and upwards to cup his cheek. Immediately he pushed his head into her touch, enjoying the way her fingers felt in his stubble.

“I am sorry,” Felicity whispered, “for what I said before.”

“You don’t have to,” Oliver replied immediately. “You weren’t… yourself. It was said out of grief and-“

“That is not really an excuse,” Felicity interrupted him. “You’re a great dad and I know you lo- loved- loved her.”

Oliver slid as close as possible without crushing Tommy between them. He pressed a kiss first to the crown of Tommy’s hair, then to the crown of Felicity’s. His nose rested against her hair when he whispered, “We both love her. Nothing will ever change that.”

Felicity nodded.

They had loved her and they would always love her. Nothing would ever change that. Not even death.

“Are we going to be alright?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver replied honestly, “but I hope so. We have good chances.”

“We do?” Felicity whispered. “Despite everything?”

“Well, we found ourselves in each other. I hope we will find comfort in each other, too,” Oliver replied and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We will find a way to go on. We have to. For us. And for Tommy. And for-“

“Emmy,” Felicity finished for him with a nod. With a mix of a sigh and a sob she closed her eyes and repeated his words, “We will find a way to go on.”

“For us. And for Tommy. And for Emmy,” he added, repeating his words from before.

“For us. And for Tommy. And for Emmy,” Felicity repeated, but her voice broke of the end. She took in a shaking breath. “We will find a way to go on. Together.”

Quiet tears were escaping both of their eyes. They knew that they had a bumpy road in front of them. They would have to face a struggle neither of them wished on their worst enemy. But they needed to face it. They were forced to face it. And of all the struggles they had had, this would be the hardest one. But it wouldn’t necessarily break them apart. They had lost so much, but they still had each other and they still had Tommy and that was what they needed to focus on and hold onto. They needed to hold onto what they still had, no matter how much what they had lost would try to pull them down and apart.

“Together,” Oliver repeated, nodding his head. “Together.”


	2. Alternative/Extended ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I don't usually add chapters to my one-shots, but I did make an expection for this one.   
> It was suggested to me on tumblr and I loved the idea, so here is an alternative/extended ending.

“Can you believe this? Our baby has a baby now,” Felicity whispered, looking down to the newborn baby that was wrapped tightly into a pink hospital blanket. “I know we should probably feel old because, you know, we’re grandparents now, but I am just… I am so happy for Tommy.”

“Me, too,” Oliver replied with a smile.

It had only been this morning that Tommy had called and told them that his wife had given birth to a baby girl the night before. Mother and baby were both tired but healthy. Felicity and Oliver had immediately called the rest of the family and then come to the hospital. Apparently their son hadn’t been here and still wasn’t. Their daughter-in-law had been and still was sleeping soundly in the hospital bed and their beautiful granddaughter had been resting in the small newborn crib next to her mother. So Felicity had taken the baby into her arms and sat down on the couch in the back of the hospital room where Isa, Tommy’s wife, would see the baby as soon as she would wake up. They didn’t want her to worry that someone had taken the baby. In all the years their lives had only become more crazy and abducted kids were nothing they hadn’t experienced yet.

“Do you remember when we had our first baby?” Felicity asked, gently stroking her granddaughter’s cheek with her forefinger.

“Sure,” Oliver said with a chuckle. “Emmy was so stubborn you’ve been in labor like forever.”

The right corner of her mouth lifted up slightly to a sad smile when tears were welling in her eyes. Oliver put a hand to his wife’s shoulder, squeezing gently, before he lowered his lips to the crown of her head and pressed a kiss to her hair.

It hadn’t gotten easier. The pain had never really decreased. It had just become less ubiquitous. Thinking about the daughter they had lost still hurt as much as it had back when she had just died. Especially moments like this one, big life-altering family moments, reminded them of the fact that Emmy should be here but wasn’t. And they also reminded them of what Emmy had never been allowed to experience. It really hadn’t gotten easier much easier for them.

But they were okay. They all were.

“I wished she was here,” Felicity whispered. “She loved Tommy so much. She would be so happy for him now.”

“Yes, she would,” Oliver replied, his voice sounding rough, and when Felicity turned around she could see that there were tears shining in his eyes like there were in hers. She loosened one hand from her granddaughter and entwined her fingers with Oliver’s instead.

They were quiet for some time, only enjoying the silent moment to watch their granddaughter closely and let the sight of the newborn life be enough to comfort them about what they had lost. It wasn’t until the door opened that they both turned their gazes away from their granddaughter.

“Look, there’s daddy,” Felicity whispered to the sleeping newborn in her arms and her voice almost broke at the thought that her little boy, the boy she had born and raised, had his own child now.

While she was still thinking about how quickly time seemed to have passed, Oliver was already getting up and approaching their son. The dark haired, blue eyed, young man smiled when his father pulled him into a tight hug and slapped his back proudly.

“Congratulations, son,” he whispered. “She is beautiful.”

“She is perfect, isn’t she?” Tommy whispered back, shortly glancing away from his daughter and at Isa, who was still asleep.

“She is,” Oliver confirmed, releasing his son from the tight hug, but keeping his arm around his shoulders and holding him close. “Your mom already took a thousand photos and sent them to your siblings.”

Tommy chuckled. “And she says she is nothing like granny.”

“Hey, be nice or I will resent you as my child and keep this sweet, little thing to replace you,” Felicity said, holding the baby girl tightly to her chest.

“Just like granny,” Tommy whispered and Oliver chuckled.

“Hon, take our granddaughter, I need to kick our son’s ass,” Felicity said with whispered voice to not disturb her daughter-in-law or her granddaughter.

She put the tiny human being into her husband’s arm. He reacted instantly, cradling the baby against his broad chest and pressing a kiss to his granddaughter’s forehead. It had been years since he had last hold a tiny baby like this in his arms and still it was like he was doing it every day of his life. She could hear him whisper words to her in Russian like he had always done for their children when they had been younger. It had had a calming effect on them.

“And now come here,” she said to Tommy, waving for him to step closer and wrapping her arms around her son’s neck to hug him close. “I am so, so proud of you. So, so proud. She is perfect.”

“Thanks, mom,” Tommy whispered and Felicity could hear how hard he was fighting his emotions, so she only hugged him more tightly, rubbing his back like she had done when he had been a little boy and crying in her arms for whatever reason. Before she released him, she pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving a pretty copy of her lipstick that she wiped away with her thumb.

When she finally let go of Tommy, he looked to the bed and perked his lips. Immediately Felicity gripped his hands and asked worriedly, “Is everything alright?”

“Yes, everything’s fine… I think.”

Oliver and Felicity exchanged a quick gaze.

“What’s going on, Tommy?” Oliver asked, rocking his granddaughter in his arms. He sensed that something was off. He knew his son. “You said both of them were healthy.”

“It’s…” Tommy said, but he stopped to take in a deep breath. Neither Oliver nor Felicity missed the way his thumb brushed nervously against the other fingers of his hand, a quirk he had adapted from his father. “I did something. And… I… I thought you would like it, but I am not so sure anymore.”

Again Oliver and Felicity looked at each other shortly before they focused their gazes back on their son. Felicity squeezed his hands reassuringly.

“We love you, no matter what you’ve done,” Felicity explained. “Just tell us.”

“Isa and I wanted to tell you together, but… I can’t wait,” Tommy explained. He took in a deep breath. “When we learned that we were having a baby girl, we started looking for names.”

“Oh boy,” Oliver mumbled and looked down to his granddaughter. “I can tell you that granny and I almost got divorced when we were looking for a name for our first baby. Girl’s names are so much harder to pick than boy’s names.”

“Picking a name wasn’t so bad. It was more you’re horrible taste regarding names that almost got us divorced,” Felicity explained, looking at him over her shoulder, and Oliver air-kissed her. When she looked back at Tommy, she smiled apologetically. “Sorry, honey. What were you about to tell us?”

“Isa and I… we decided…” Tommy started and took in another deep breath. “We decided to call her Emmeline.”

Felicity’s breath hitched while Oliver became almost motionless, stopping to rock the baby in his arms and kind of turning to stone. Both of them were staring at their son with wide eyes and unreadable expressions on their faces. And Tommy felt even more nervous about their reactions than he had been since the decision had been made.

When Isa and he had decided on this, he had thought it would be a good idea. He knew how much Emmy had loved him and how much he had loved her because, although he couldn’t remember anything, there were photos and recordings and other things like drawings of his early deceased sister that proved it. He had grown up, knowing that his big sister had loved him from the day she had learned that he would be born to the day she had died. And according to what his parents and everybody else had told him about her, she had been a lovely, little girl. So calling his daughter Emmeline had felt right.

But now that his parents seemed paralyzed by the news, Tommy wondered if he should have talked to them first. He knew that Emmy’s death had changed their lives and changed them. It had almost torn them apart. At some point they had accepted her death and kept on living, but they still suffered from the knowledge that their first child had been ripped from their lives too soon.

Felicity turned her head to Oliver. Both their eyes were filled with tears when they gazes locked.

“I’m… I… I hope you don’t…” Tommy stammered nervously, but he stopped when his mother pulled him back into another tight hug.

She sobbed into his ear quietly. Her tears dripped down onto her son’s neck and Tommy felt own tears welling in his eyes. They only started falling when he saw the tears in his father’s eyes, though.

“Thank you so much,” Felicity sobbed against her son’s neck. “Thank you.”

Oliver joined into the hug. He wrapped his free arm around his wife and his son, holding his granddaughter safely in his other arms, so she wouldn’t get crushed between them. All three of them were crying. Only the newborn baby was sleeping peacefully.

Oliver, Felicity, Tommy and Emmeline together in a hug – almost like in old times when the four of them had snuggled up to one another on the couch or in the parental bed back before the tragedy had happened. And still it was so unfamiliar because it was so new.

Their Emmy wasn’t back. She would never come back. But her memory would live on. And that was all they could ask for.


End file.
